“Gee whiz, that person is doing something mighty suspicious, let’s follow him and see what happens…”

And hence the story begins.

This is fine for Nancy Drew or the Famous Five, but if you want to keep modern adult readers engaged, you’re going to need to be a bit more sophisticated than that.

Pretty much all stories are based on change and transformation, either of a situation (if the story is more plot driven) or if a character (if the story is character driven). In order for transformation to take place, there needs to be a reason. 

If Sarah has been plodding along at her nine-to-five for the past ten years and nothing changes, she’ll probably plod along for another ten. You can’t just have her wake up one day and decide she wants to be a ninja archaeologist – nobody will buy it. There needs to be some trigger, preferably which can’t be ignored.

Triggers can be ‘towards’ or ‘away from’.

‘Towards’ triggers will be something the character desperately wants. This could be a the appearance of a person, a job, a prize, an environmental outcome, a wealth opportunity etc.

‘Away from’ triggers will be something the character definitely does not want, that they are fleeing from. This could be a looming, life-threatening danger, or could be more subtle than that, just something that will disrupt their comfortable life.

Here are some examples of triggers that oblige a character to act from popular literature:

• Nala coming to tell Simba that the pride needs his leadership in The Lion King
• Juliette is offered the job of Sheriff of the silo in Wool
• Danny’s dad doesn’t come back from a poaching trip in the woods in Danny the Champion of the World.
•  James Herriot is offered a new job as a vet in the Yorkshire Dales in If Only They Could Talk

Think back on the last few books you have read and make a list of the turning points or calls to action that the main characters encountered. 

Next make a list of ten triggers or calls to action that you can think of yourself. Make five of them ‘towards’ triggers and five of them ‘away from’.

Feel free to add your ideas in the comments below!

If you found this article useful, and you haven’t checked out the Novel Factory novel writing software yet, then you really should…

One of the biggest problems I have when it comes to novel writing is the beginning (though to be fair, that’s probably just the first problem, before I come up against the other two major issues – the middle and the end).

I work hard to try to make the story really start with a bang, with action, immediate goals, and conflict – the lot. But time and time again, my writing group tell me that it just seems to ‘take a while to get going’. There’s a problem. They’re not hooked.

So how can you make sure you’re story really grabs people by the eyeballs?

Apply the 400 word rule

Imagine you’re entering a writing competition, but you’re only allowed to enter the first 400 words of your novel. Those first 400 words have to grab the judges immediately and leave them wanting to know more.

I find if you go back to your first scene (after you’ve finished your first draft of course – no editing is allowed before the first draft has been dragged out of you) and strictly follow this rule - not 500 words, not 450 words – then you can really make sure your story has power and punch from the first page.

You’re forced to cut out any unnecessary scene setting (readers don’t need to know the backstory, they’ll pick it up as they go along), any waffle descriptions (no words to waste!) and forces you to establish a protagonist, a goal and conflict.

All within the first 400 words.

 

Check out our writing theory resources:

Finding inspiration to get started writing a novel

Many writers constantly have ideas bubbling around, each waiting for Novel Software Articles their turn to be put down on paper (or screen).

How to create characters

There are many, many, books on creating decent characters, and we're going to try to summarise character creation in a few brief study notes.

 

 

As an author, you ought to know exactly what time it is, and also what the weather is like, at any given moment in your story. Having this information will help consistency and clarity – which translates to your world feeling more real.

Time

Ideally, you should know the year, month, day, time of day and even exact time of day – even if you never mention it specifically. Then, as the real time scene unfolds, make sure time passes accordingly; otherwise your characters may find themselves in a perpetual midday or early evening.

Thinking about what time of day it is can also add realism to your scene, if you weave in the world

around your characters. Is the scene happening around 8am or 5.30pm? Then aren’t the streets filled with harried commuters? Or is it the middle of the afternoon? So the only people in sight are mothers with children, and retirees.

When going over longer time periods, you can still refer to specific months and seasons, or even years, to give a sense of weight to the passing of time. Saying that June turned into August anchors readers in your world a lot more than saying eight weeks passed.

Weather

As an author, the possibilities of building atmosphere and mood with the weather has probably occurred to you long before now.

Try to go beyond the basic weather options: stormy for an angry scene, rainy for a depressed scene, sunny for a happy scene, ray of sunshine through the clouds for a good realisation.

There are many different types of each of the weather conditions above, a storm can be a howling wind with needles of rain, or it could be thunderous and rolling. Rain can be coming down in violent blankets, a miserable grey drizzle, or it could even be huge dollops of life giving nourishment.

In that way, rain could represent new life and happiness, a storm could be excitement and joyful exhilaration, the sun could be oppressive and draining.

The key is to be as specific as possible, and to try to not always stick to the clichés. Breaking them can be refreshing.

As with time, consistency and awareness are important. Make sure you know what the weather is like, so you don’t accidentally have it gloomy one minute and clear blue the next.

Read more about time and weather and how they relate to theme and variations in your novel here.

Getting feedback on your writing is a critical part of the professional development of any writer. If you haven’t shown your work to anybody yet, and you’re shy to – that’s not a problem. It just means you’re in an early stage of your artistic development. You still have peer review to look forward to – and believe me, as long as you genuinely want to master your art, peer review is one of the most exciting and enlightening experiences you can have.

However, unless they are also writers, getting your friends and family to read and give their opinions on your work is not peer review.

Below I’ll explain why I don’t recommend getting your friends and family to read your work and give you feedback on it.

They’re biased

Unless you’re doing really something wrong, your friends and family probably like you. This means that they will be biased in favour of your work. In some cases they may just not want to hurt your feelings, so even if they don’t think it’s very good, they will still tell you they loved it.

However, even if they do intend to give you genuine feedback, they will be influenced by everything they know about you, including your personality, views and background. This may mean they read it positively because they are impressed that a real human that they know can string a decent metaphor together. On the other hand, they may be overly critical, second guessing and analysing it in ways that a stranger might not.

Inaccurately positive or negative reviews can both be damaging as they can both lead to delusions. One that you’re better than you are, the other that you’re no good when you may well be.

Not all opinions are equal

The problem is that unless someone is a writer themselves, or at least have a strong interest in literature, they are unlikely to be able to tell what makes a good piece of writing. They are simply going to be giving their own personal response to a piece.

This does have its place, but as I outlined above, if the emotional response is biased, it may be unhelpful or even harmful. And even if they are utterly genuine, getting just one or two emotional responses still doesn’t really tell you much. What you really need from feedback is educated reasons why things don’t work and suggestions as to what might work better.

You need a range of opinions

Even when it comes to highly educated, experienced peer review feedback, getting only one or two can be risky. As you’ll discover if you go to a critique group, people’s views on pretty much every aspect of writing will vary wildly. A sentence or even word that riles one person up might be the other’s favourite. The pace might send one person to sleep, while another finds it just perfect. By getting feedback from a range of people you don’t end up making unnecessary changes just based on a single person’s niggles. And on the other hand, when you find ten people are unanimous about something – you know you have to pay attention.

Click here to read more about finding inspiration to get started writing a novel.

Having a killer first line is the Holy Grail for many writers, and years have probably been spent agonising over the first few words which will be followed by tens of thousands.

This article is sponsored by The Novel Factory

In a series of articles, we're going to look at first lines from some well known books and try to gain some insights into how the masters do it. We'll look at a random cross section of literature from the old classics to the modern, including all genres from literary, comedy, autobiographical, fantasy, philosophical and children's.

In this first article, I'm just going to present twelve opening lines from various books, in order of the year they were published, then draw some general conclusions. In following articles, we'll look at them in more detail.

(In a few cases I've included the first two lines, where I think it's appropriate.)

Here we go...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1870), Charles Dickens

A squat grey building of only thirty-four storeys. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.

BRAVE NEW WORLD (1932), Aldous Huxley

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit hole, and that means comfort.

THE HOBBIT (1937), J R R Tolkien

July had been blown out like a candle by a biting wind that ushered in a leaden August sky.

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS (1956), Gerald Durrell

This journey took place in a part of Canada which lies in the northwestern part of the great sprawling province of Ontario.

THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY (1961), Sheila Burnford

We slept in what had once been the gymnasium.

THE HANDMAID’S TALE (1986), Margaret Atwood

8st 13, alcohol units 2 (excellent), cigarettes 7, calories 3,100 (poor)

2pm Oh why hasn’t Daniel rung? Hideous, wasted weekend glaring psychopathically at the phone and eating things.

BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY (1995), Helen Fielding

On the morning after the night it happened, Bruce Delamitri was sitting in a police interview room.

POPCORN (1996), Ben Elton

By the river Piedra I sat down and wept. There is a legend that everything that falls into the waters of this river – leaves, insects, the feather of birds – is transformed into the rocks that make the riverbed.

BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN AND WEPT (1996), Paulo Coehlo

He came one late, wet spring, and brought the wide world back to my doorstep.

FOOL’S ERRAND (2001), Robin Hobb

How does one describe Artemis Fowl? Various psychiatrists have tried and failed.

Artemis FOWL (2001), Eoin Colfer

The main conclusion I draw from these is the increasing brevity over the years. Now obviously this is too small a sample to really base any solid judgements on, but there definitely seems to be a trend of shortening first lines. This may be a reflection of our shortened attention spans, or the fact that there is so much more competition in the world of literature, so authors have to work harder to hook us in from the first moment.

Also, there seems to be a shift from describing the situation and aurroundings, to focussing right in on character.  All the examples previous to 1980 make no mention of a any characters, with the exception of the hobbit. However, every one after that mentions a character, with half of them even being mentioned by name.

In the next article on this topic we'll look at some of these opening lines in more detail and see if we can learn anything...

If you enjoyed this article, you might want to check out our novel writing software. Designed by writers for writers.